The present invention relates to a display-based vehicle arrangement comprising an operational interface for a vehicle function. The invention also relates to a corresponding method and computer program product for controlling a display-based vehicle arrangement.
The operation of a vehicle involves a large plurality of different tasks, including for example the more general issues relating to distance and lane keeping, awareness in general (e.g. when driving on a straight road or entering a roundabout), and more complicated traffic situations relating to safe and economic operation of the vehicle. Modern vehicles are typically equipped with a multitude of vehicle functions for driving aid, navigation, comfort and entertainment.
Driver distraction has been identified as one of the largest safety concerns in traffic safety today. The challenges posed by the ever increasing number of nomadic devices, more sophisticated navigation systems and the permanent need of professional drivers to interact with fleet management systems, means that driver distraction is an issue increasing in severity. More than 90% of accidents are today considered to be driver behavior related.
US 2011/0208604 A1 discloses a media delivery system with voice input and head-up display. The heads-up display will show a list of metadata of connected media assets and after a selection is received by the voice input device the system will play back the selected media asset. While US 2011/0208604 A1 discloses that voice controlled input does not require the driver to avert eyes from the road it still requires voice commands corresponding to each media asset.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,844,500 describes a device with a human-machine interface for use as a user control interface, particularly in an automotive environment, which temporarily makes an indication of the function of a control organ perceptible, when the user begins to actuate it, but has not yet definitively actuated it. The device with a human-machine interface helps the user to find the right control organ, or warns about dangerous control organs. Moreover, ways of finding groups of control organs and verifying the setting of groups of control organs are made possible.
In view of the above, it would be desirable to provide firther improvements in relation to a safe interface for controlling different vehicle functions. Specifically it would be desirable to provide an interface that guides the driver to control vehicle functions located outside the field of view.
In view of the above-mentioned and other drawbacks of the prior art, it is desirable to provide a vehicle arrangement that assist the driver to safely control vehicle functions.
According to a first aspect of the invention a vehicle arrangement, comprising a display for providing an indication of a status of a first vehicle function, a first operational interface for controlling the first vehicle function, and a control unit connected to the display and the first operational interface, the control unit being adapted for selectively controlling the display for displaying the status of the first vehicle function, wherein the vehicle arrangement further comprises means for detecting an intention to control the first operational interface, and the control unit selectively controls the display for displaying the status of the first vehicle function at and for a predetermined time period following the detection of an intention to control the first operational interface.
In the context of this application, an operational interface shall be interpreted as any means for controlling a vehicle function. It may e.g. be a physical bottom, switch, stick (e.g. for changing gear), hand-lever (e.g. for activating turning signal or adjusting throttle), pedals (e.g. for brake, clutch or throttle, etc), turning knob (e.g. for adjusting volume), touch screen, voice control means, gesture control means (both on-screen and in space e.g. by means of video input), or any other equivalent controlling means.
Thereby, the vehicle arrangement may assist a driver or passenger in controlling the vehicle functions, as the display makes controlling of the function intuitive by displaying the intensions of the driver on the display arranged e.g. in front of the driver's operational sight direction. The driver or passenger may instantaneous obtain visual feedback from the display, enabling him/her to keep his/her eyes on the road or other active operations while controlling the vehicle function. Instead of turning the head and looking for or on the operational interface, the eyes may be kept on the road. For example, by laying the hand on the shift stick, the driver may see what gear is in use, or when picking up a ringing mobile phone the caller ID may be displayed at the display, when lifting a bucket with sand in an excavator the weight of the load may be displayed, or when rotating the cabin relative the tracks the rotation position may be displayed etc. The vehicle arrangement according to above, allows a decentralized indirect control of the display, where the operational interface is basically virtually extended to the display for allowing direct feedback for the driver or a passenger. By allowing direct feedback through displaying a vehicle function status on the display when an intention to control the vehicle function is detected, the driver may keep his eyes on the relevant operations instead of glancing at the operational interface for controlling the vehicle function. Both a current status may thereby be communicated (e.g. what the load in the bucket is, or what gear is activated) but also a change of the status (increase of volume, cabin orientation relative the tracks etc.) may be communicated in real time.
Thereby, a safer and more efficient vehicle may be provided. Further, the display may be arranged in an operational sight line. In a car or truck the driver's operational sight line normally extends from the driver and in a direction in which the car is moving or intended to move, i.e. typically forwards or backwards. However, for another vehicle, e.g. an excavator, the operational sight line may also extend from the driver in a direction in towards an active operation. For example, the sight line may extend from the driver to the bucket if the driver is performing a digging operation. Thus, the display may be arranged between the driver and the windshield, or between the driver and another window of the vehicle.
In one embodiment of the invention, the vehicle arrangement further comprises a second operational interface for controlling a second vehicle function, and means for detecting an intention to control the second operational interface, wherein the control unit is further connected to the second operational interface and adapted for selectively controlling the display for displaying the status of the first or the second vehicle function based on a priority level for the first vehicle function relative a priority level for the second vehicle function. Thereby, intentions to control several functions may be detected and the function status having the highest priority level may be displayed in real time on the display. Thereby, the driver or passenger may simultaneously intend to control two functions and the status of the most relevant function is displayed, wherein relevancy is based on the priority level of each function. By enabling the vehicle arrangement to not only detect intensions to control vehicle functions, but also to consider the priority level of the vehicle functions statuses the vehicle arrangement may further assist the driver in focusing on performed operations, e.g. driving or digging, and the most relevant functions' statuses, e.g. gear selection or bucket load weight. The priority level may relate directly to a corresponding function or relate indirectly to the corresponding function by representing the priority level of the status of the corresponding function. E.g. the status of a bucket exceeding maximum load weight may have one priority level and the status the bucket being empty may have another priority level, or e.g. the vehicle function of the gear selection may have the same priority irrespective of what gear is selected. The priority level of a function or function status may be absolute i.e. be compared to a threshold value. However, the priority level may also be relative, i.e. the priority level of the first vehicle function may be compared to the priority level of the second vehicle function etc.
Further, in other embodiments more than two operational interfaces and vehicle functions may be implemented in the system, where some vehicle functions' status having higher priority level being displayed at the display, and other vehicle functions' status, e.g. having a lower priority being suppressed. Thereby, the driver may operate a vehicle with a plurality of vehicle functions and continuously obtain feedback based on the intention to operate the functions from the display from several relevant vehicle function statuses, and not being bothered with information about vehicle function statuses from non-relevant vehicle functions, e.g. having a lower priority than what is currently displayed.
In yet one embodiment of the present invention the control unit is adapted for, after displaying the status of the first or the second vehicle function, displaying the status of the other one of the first or second vehicle function. Thereby, the vehicle function status with the lower priority may be displayed after the vehicle function status with the higher priority level has already been displayed. Thereby, the driver is informed about the vehicle function status in a priority order, where the information is perceived as being ordered in several layers, where the most relevant information is provided in a top layer representing the vehicle function status having the highest priority level and the less relevant information is provided in a layer beneath the top layer representing information about any vehicle function status having a lower priority.
In one embodiment of the present invention the means for detecting the intention to control the operational interface is adapted to detect the intention prior to an operation of the relevant operational interface. Further the present invention may comprise one of a camera, a near field detector arranged in the vicinity of the operational interface, a touch sensitive sensor or textiles or a voice detector. Thereby, the intention to control a vehicle function may be detected before any operation of the operational interface is initiated. Thereby, the driver does not have to make any adjustments to a vehicle function for the display to display the status of the function. E.g. the active gear may be displayed when the driver moves his hand towards the gear shift stick or moves the foot towards the clutch.
In yet one embodiment of the present invention the vehicle arrangement further comprises driver state detecting means for detection of a driver state, and wherein the control unit selectively controls the display for suppressing the status of a vehicle function if the detected driver state is below a predetermined threshold value. Thereby, if the driver is in a detected state below the predetermined level, the vehicle arrangement may not bother the driver with status of a vehicle function if it is not necessary. By both considering the priority level of the vehicle function and the driver state, an accurate amount of information may be displayed at the display.
In one embodiment of the present invention, the vehicle arrangement further comprises driving context complexity level detecting means for detecting a complexity level of a driving context, and wherein the control unit controls the display for suppressing the status of a vehicle function if the detected context complexity level is above a predetermined threshold value. Thereby, if the driving context complexity level exceeds the threshold value, the driver is not disturbed by displaying the vehicle function status on the display, instead the status is suppressed to allow the driver to fully concentrate on the driving situation.
In one embodiment of the invention the display is a Head Up Display (HUD). Thereby, the display will only require a limited amount of space. Further a HUD is a cheap solution as the information may be projected directly on the windshield or on a piece of at least partly transparent material. In another embodiment of the invention the display comprises several displays. Thereby, a larger display may be enabled by utilizing smaller several displays. Further, the different displays may be arranged so that the driver experiences them as one displaying experience, allowing the driver to focus on what is happening outside the windshield. This may be achieved either may arranging the smaller displays e.g. close to each other, or distributed in an area between the driver and the windshield.
According to another aspect of the invention there is provided a method for controlling a vehicle arrangement, the vehicle arrangement comprising a display for providing an indication of a status of a first vehicle function, a first operational interface for controlling the first vehicle function, a control unit connected to the display and the first operational interface, and means for detecting an intention to control the first operational interface, the method comprising, detecting an intention to control the first operational interface, and selectively control the display for displaying the status of the first vehicle function at and for a predetermined time period following the detection of an indication to control the first operational interface.
The advantages of the method as defined above are largely analogous to the advantages of the vehicle arrangement as described above. That is, by allowing direct feedback through displaying a vehicle function status on the display when an intention to control the vehicle function is detected, the driver may keep his eyes on the relevant operations instead of glancing at the operational interface for controlling the vehicle function. Both a current status may thereby be communicated (e.g. what the load in the bucket is, or what gear is activated) but also a change of the status (increase of volume, cabin orientation relative the tracks etc.) may be communicated in real time.
Thereby, a safer and more efficient vehicle may be provided.
In one embodiment of the present invention the method further comprises detecting an intention to control a second operational interface, and selectively controlling the display for displaying the status of one of the first vehicle function and a second vehicle function based on a first vehicle function's priority relative a second vehicle function's priority. Thereby, as discussed above, intentions to control several functions may be detected and the function status which has the highest priority may be displayed in real time on the display. Thereby, the driver may operate a vehicle with a plurality of vehicle functions and continuously obtain feedback from the display based on detected intentions to control several relevant vehicle functions, and not being bothered with information about vehicle function statuses from non-relevant vehicle functions.
According to still another aspect of the invention, there is provided a computer-readable storage medium storing a program which causes a computer to execute a control method as described in any of the embodiments above.
According to a still further aspect of the invention there is provided a computer program product comprising a computer readable medium having stored thereon computer program means for controlling a vehicle arrangement, the vehicle arrangement comprising a display for providing an indication of a status of a first vehicle function, a first operational interface for controlling the first vehicle function, a control unit connected to the display and the first operational interface, and means for detecting an intention to control the first operational interface, wherein the computer program product comprises: code for detecting an intention to control the first operational interface, and code for selectively control the display for displaying the status of the first vehicle function at and for a predetermined time period following the detection of an indication to control the first operational interface.
In one embodiment, the computer program further comprises code for selectively control the display for displaying the status of one of the first vehicle function and a second vehicle function based on a first vehicle function's priority relative a second vehicle function's priority. The advantages with a computer program product or computer-readable storage medium storing a program as described above are analogous to the advantages as described above; it allows the driver to keep his/her eyes on the relevant operations instead of glancing at the operational interface when controlling a vehicle function.
The computer readable medium may be one of a removable nonvolatile random access memory, a hard disk drive, a floppy disk, a CD-ROM, a DVD-ROM, a USB memory, an SD memory card, or a similar computer readable medium known in the art (present and future). The present invention may be implemented using a combination of software and hardware elements.
Further features of, and advantages with, the present invention will become apparent when studying the appended claims and the following description. The skilled addressee realize that different features of the present invention may be combined to create embodiments other than those described in the following, without departing from the scope of the present invention.